The Emperor (50 page)

She rolled her head on the pillow, and saw Father
Thomas sitting by the bedside. He looked worn and hag
gard, as though he had not slept for a long time. His head
was bent over a book on his knee, but his eyelids were drooping with weariness. Then he must somehow have
sensed that she was awake. He raised his head, with an
effort, as though it were a great weight, and turned to her. Their eyes met, and a long clear look passed between them.

‘Father Thomas,' she said, and it was clear her voice had
not been used for a long time, for nothing but a whisper
would come, and her lips felt numb, and would not shape
the words properly. 'Am I dying, then?’

For a long time he only looked at her, and then he
nodded. 'Ah,' she sighed. She saw him lean across and take
her hand, but she felt nothing, and he must have realized it,
for he let it go again, and with trembling fingers stroked her cheek. She tried to smile her thanks, and saw to her amazement that great tears were welling up in his eyes and rolling over onto his grey and weary cheeks.

‘No,' she whispered kindly, 'no, don't. I'm not unhappy.’

She still didn't know what had happened to her, and
there were a great many questions she could have asked, but
she found suddenly that she did not very much want to
know the answers. She was very tired, and now that the
horrible dreams were gone, she felt peaceful, warm and
relaxed. It was like the sensation of being in a hot bath after a strenuous day's hunting.

It was all over, then. She was to pass on, through the mysterious doors, to that other place that she had spent so
much of her life wondering about, and preparing for. She
felt little curiosity about that, either. Here, at the very edge, she felt nothing, and wanted nothing. She thought briefly of her long life, and it seemed irrelevant, uninteresting. She watched the sunlight moving imperceptibly across the wall and thought, it's beautiful; I'm glad the sun is shining. She would be with Allen again: she had been so long away from
him, and she had missed him so much. The sun shining, and
going to be with Allen, and no pain or fear, only this sweet tiredness. Death was good, after all.

She turned her head to Father Thomas again, and he
bent forward, wetting her face with his tears, to catch her
words. 'Don't tell them, Father,' she whispered. 'Don't let
them come in, until afterwards.' He nodded, unable to
speak, and not knowing what else to do, stroked her head tremblingly. 'Yes,' she murmured, smiling a little, 'that feels good.' The golden light was fading, and sleep beckoned, and
there was nothing left to do. She unclasped her mind, and
let go.

 
The mistress was dead. The beating heart of the house was
stilled, and Morland Place lay numb and helpless as though
under some evil enchantment.

The machinery of the household, which had run so
smoothly for so long that no-one noticed it any more,
ground to a halt; beds were left unmade, floors unswept. No
meals were prepared that day. Monsieur Barnard had dis
appeared, the kitchen fire had gone out, and the door stood
open on the yard. Cautious hens stepped in to forage, and
there was no-one to drive them out, or the cats that
followed them.

Mrs Mappin had shut herself in her room to cry, while Oxhey remained in his pantry, frantically polishing every
piece of plate the family owned, as though the exercise
eased some unbearable pressure in his soul. Brach had
retreated under a table in the hall, from the depths of whose
shadows, like a Sibyl in a cave, she rolled her eyes and
moaned at anyone who passed; and out in the yard the
peacocks sat in a row along the stable roof shrieking
dismally, for the poultry-maid had forgotten to feed them.

The horses had been fed and watered, a horseman's
instincts, even those of the youngest lad, being stronger than the strongest grief. The youngest lad had got on quietly with
filling the water buckets, until, coming into Hazel's box, he
had found Mr Hoskins, his hand suspended in the act of
brushing her over, weeping into the indignant mare's mane.
This proved too much for the youngest lad, who gulped
several times and retreated, scrambled up into the hayloft,
burrowed into the heap of loose hay, and abandoned
himself to sobs.

James could not bear to stay in the house. He went out to the yard, waving away Durban and the grooms, saddled Nez
Carré himself, and took him out alone and rode fast until
they were both tired. Coming at length to Harewood Whin
he pulled up and slid from the saddle, and stood leaning
against Nez Carré's shoulder waiting for the tears to come;
but they would not. His throat and eyes and chest, even his
jaws, ached with the need to cry, but it all seemed somehow
locked inside him.

She was dead and gone, he thought. The common phrase
had new meaning for him now.
She was dead — a
form of words, with so many echoes and connotations, of fear and
expectation and religious belief; but
she was gone —
ah, that
was different! The body of Jemima, Lady Morland, lay on
the bed in the Red Room, waiting for the women to prepare
it for its coffin, but it was mere untenanted clay:
she
was not
there. She had gone away, and would never come back, and
he would never see her again. The inmost part of him,
dumb, dark and unreasoning, cried out for her like an aban
doned child, and refused explanation or comfort. His intel
ligence stood aside and observed it in astonishment: he was
thirty-one years old, and yet inside he was whimpering for
his mother like a three year-old.

Hunger made itself felt at last. He did not want to go
back home, to the house where his mother no longer lived;
and in any case, there would be likely to be no comfort
there today. Nez Carré turned his head and regarded him curiously, and then nudged him in a friendly way. James
gathered the reins and swung himself back into the saddle,
and turned the big horse onto the track towards the city. He
would go to the club, he thought; stable Nez Carré at the
Bunch of Grapes as usual, eat whatever was the ordinary in
the dining room; and then climb inside a bottle of brandy
and stay there for the rest of the day. Reality could have its
turn with him tomorrow: for today, he was excusing himself.

*

It was Mary Ann who took charge, in the end. She had
spent some time in the chapel, the only part of the house
where there was any activity. Here the shadows had been driven up to the furthest corners of the rafters, for Father
Thomas had lit every candle in every candlestick, torchère
and sconce, so the very air glittered and dazzled, and the
altars seemed weighted with stars, all dancing together with
the movement of air. The air was heavy with incense, and
the priest and his two boys dipped and rose rhythmically at
their prayers, he heavily, they lightly, like one large and two
small boats on the same ocean swell.

They had their own tasks to occupy them, but everyone
else in the house seemed to be in a state of paralysis. In the
end it was a sense of propriety as much as hunger which
drove Mary Ann to take action. She went first to the
kitchen. Monsieur Barnard was still nowhere to be found, so
she dragged a kitchen boy from his retirement and made
him relight the fire, and set the scullery maids to gathering
together what cold food they could find, to fill the gap until
a proper meal could be cooked. Passing into the servants' hall, she found some housemaids sitting at the table, their heads together, telling dreary stories abut strange happen
ings in graveyards, and corpses that sat up and spoke; and
she took a grim delight in driving them out to light a fire in
the drawing-room, set a kettle to boil over it, and take in the tea-things.

Having set these matters in train, she climbed the back
stairs to the top of the house and frightened Mrs Mappin to
her feet by suddenly appearing at her bedside with the brisk
injunction to dry her eyes, wash her face, and take up her
duties.

‘
The women must be sent for to lay out the body — it
should have been done long since — and if the cook cannot
be found, you will have to prepare something for supper. I will help you, but you must rouse yourself now, and set to
work.'

‘
Yes, ma'am,' Mrs Mappin muttered, half resentful, but
half relieved to have someone take up the reins again.

Oxhey was still in his pantry, surrounded by a pirate's
treasure of glittering plate. His face looked grey and
exhausted, his eyes red-rimmed, and he was staring blankly
into space, while his gloved hand still mechanically rubbed
the cloth over and over the salver he was holding. It took time and patience for Mary Ann to gain his attention, and
even longer to make him understand his orders. He is too
old, she thought to herself; and then, with a rather grim
pleasure, it is time for him to retire, and once I am mistress
of the house, I shall see he does. There will be a number of
changes from now on, she thought, and had to exert self-
discipline not to start thinking of them immediately.

So it was that by the time James rode reluctantly back
home, a modicum of order and comfort had been restored.
One of the footmen, Jacob, opened the door to him, and
told him that Mr Oxhey had retired to his room, sir, quite
done-up, he was, and Madam and the gentlemen was in the
drawing-room taking tea. He spoke with an undertow of
enormous gratification, which James had no difficulty in separating from the words as the emotions of a man who
believed his chance had come at last.

In the drawing-room James found Ned and Harry sitting
by the fire with the dogs. Leaky got up to greet James as he
came in; Brach had changed caves from the hall table to
Edward's chair, and now was sleeping busily with her head
between his feet. Mary Ann was at the tea-table operating
amongst the silver and porcelain, the jugs and kettles, like
an alchemist preparing to turn the base metal of grief into
the gold of social intercourse. It was evidently working as far
as his brothers were concerned, for their eyes were fixed on
her, bemused but comforted.

She looked up at James standing in the doorway,
absently stroking Leaky's ears, and said, 'When did you eat?
We have had supper, but I can ring for something for you.’

James shook his head. 'I had dinner at the club.'

‘Some tea, then.'

‘
If you like.' He looked about the room, and said, 'You
have been busy.’

She looked at him cautiously, detecting no praise in his
voice, and yet unable to guess what else there might be.
‘Someone had to take the reins,' she said.

‘
And what more natural than it should be you,' he said.
She decided to leave the comment alone, handed him his
cup, and carried two more over to the fireplace.

‘
Everything's in a way to be done,' Edward said. He
sounded tired, but no more tired than a man who has
laboured hard. James envied him the ability to take comfort from Mary Ann; would I might give her to you, he thought.
They would deal splendidly together, bed uncomplicatedly,
and fill the empty nursery with a large brood of handsome
children. How easy it would be to do what was expected of
one, to win the world's approval, if it weren't for love.
Edward and Chetwyn, James and Héloïse: he began to see
the justice with which old-fashioned people condemned this
love business as being dangerous, vulgar and unnecessary.

He sipped his tea, and watched his wife moving about the
room, a tall and handsome woman, even-tempered and
well-principled, with everything about her to admire and
nothing to disgust. There was no reason why he should not
love her and be a husband to her, except that he could never
feel that she was other than separate from him. She fitted
into no place inside him, and he had been raised by parents
who had been two halves of one soul. They were together
again now; but they had left James wanting no less than they
had had.